DNA law ends long hunt for suspect

Database links felon to killing, assault in 1995

May 02, 2003|By Liam Ford, Tribune staff reporter.

A new law requiring convicted felons to provide DNA samples has led to murder and rape charges against a 56-year-old man, bringing a close to an 8-year search for suspects in crime sprees that left 18 dead and terrorized the Englewood neighborhood.

Bernard Middleton, who has been arrested at least 75 times on various charges and is awaiting trial on theft charges, was charged in the Oct. 16, 1995, strangulation and sex assault of Jeanine White, 32, in an outside stairway at Hope Community Academy, 645 W. Garfield Blvd., authorities said.

The charges came after a national database matched a sample of Middleton's DNA to White's killing. The DNA sample was a condition of Middleton's parole last December on a felony theft conviction, said Chicago Police Sgt. Tony Kuta, of Wentworth Area Violent Crimes.

Kuta is head of a task force formed in 1999 to investigate four series of rapes and homicides in Englewood of women who often were prostitutes and drug addicts dating back to 1995.

"This we believe is a conclusion of that series of unsolved crimes," Wentworth Area Cmdr. James Jackson said in a news conference Thursday at police headquarters.

In addition to White's murder and rape, the DNA testing tied Middleton to four other rapes, Jackson said. Prosecutors are preparing charges in the fourth, pending police locating the victim in that case, Kuta said.

The law that led to the DNA testing went into effect in August 2002 and requires that all Illinois felons supply DNA samples for the national Combined DNA Index System. Sex offenders have been required to submit DNA samples for the database since 1990.

Chicago police said the charges made public Thursday are the most significant "hit" they have had to date using the expanded system. They expect there to be many more old cases solved using the additional DNA samples.

"Without the submission of his DNA, we would not have known that [Middleton] committed these aggravated criminal sexual assaults or this homicide," Jackson said.

Middleton's only conviction in a violent crime was a 1986 aggravated battery, although in the 1970s he was arrested on several violent crimes charges, police said. Until last week when the DNA results came back, Middleton's convictions and arrests since 1986 had been on shoplifting charges. He provided a DNA sample as he was about to be released on a 2001 shoplifting charge, but the match was not made until last week, said Kuta, whose task force previously had been checking the DNA of known sex offenders to try to find a match.

When police looked for Middleton, they found he again had been arrested and was being held in Cook County Jail pending trial on yet another theft case.

The rapes Middleton had been charged with Thursday were one on Sept. 25, 1995, also on the outside stairway at Hope Academy; one on Feb. 24, 1997, in the 7400 block of South Evans Avenue, and one in the 1400 block of North Western Avenue on Oct. 31, 1998. Victims in those cases have identified him in lineups, police said.

Middleton would seek out the women, "show them a little crack cocaine, and say, `Let's go do this.' And then when he got back there, he assaulted them. And he ended up killing Jeanine White," Kuta said.

The charges against Middleton--whose last known address was a homeless shelter in the 900 block of West Lawrence Avenue--may bring to a close a sorry chapter in Englewood and New City's history that began in the early 1990s.Kuta's task force was formed by Police Supt. Terry Hillard to investigate the murders and sexual assaults of women living so-called high-risk lifestyles involving drug use and prostitution. Investigators grouped 18 unsolved homicides into four clusters, which they described as Patterns A, B, C and D. The charges against Middleton resolved the last unsolved cluster, Pattern B, which Hillard had highlighted as early as the day after White's killing by holding a news conference on the case.

In the other three crime patterns, Andre Crawford, of Chicago, is awaiting trial in 11 of the 18 murders; Ronald Macon, of the South Side, is charged with three other murders; and three men are awaiting trial in one other murder.

Englewood residents who have focused attention on the crimes applauded Middleton's arrest.

Jackson and Kuta said the task force will continue to investigate cases as they arise. Kuta noted that Englewood still has the highest number of registered sex offenders of any area in the city. They said police currently are investigating a linked series of five sex assaults.

"Years ago, nobody cared about these girls. Well, they're homicide victims. They're people, citizens of Chicago, and they deserve the same investigation, the same integrity of investigation as anyone else," Kuta said.